HEATHER AND MIKE'S LONGEST RIDE

Here is a link to our garmin info of this route garmin
Today was a buddy ride for Team in Training. That is less organized ride with no s.a.g.
This weeks long ride was scheduled to be 55 miles in Woodside. I heard it's really pretty and a good place to ride, but Heather had a baby shower to go to in Livermore at 1 pm. Not enuff time to ride and then make it back and get cleaned up to go. So we decided to start our ride from the house and our goal was 50 miles. I didn't map our route but guessed it to be 50 miles and if it was short I would cheat in a couple of laps around the lake in Discovery Bay. Well to our surprise we hit 50 miles about 10 miles from home so we were golden, didn't have to add any miles. The route was mostly flat but had a few rolling hills and one steep climb up to Black Diamond Mines. Similiar to the wall at Diablo and the climb to Los Vaqueros dam. It was nice to see Heather's improvements. Last time we did Black Diamond Mines, she stopped twice on the climb. Today we had about 40 miles in our legs already and she went to the top without stopping. With just one days rest after climbing to the summit of Diablo.

The day started off ruff. We stayed up late last night watching American Flyers, an old classic movie about cycle racing. It's a must see if your are into the sport. We had no kids for a change, so I didn't prep the bikes at all... woke up at 05:30 to change out all our tires and clean bikes and lube the chains. If you notice the pictures I got Heather some cool new red tires.. I figured since she climbed Mt. Diablo so good that she deserved to be on a good fast light tire. But guess what? My pump was in my lil box at Loard's in Brentwood. We had to call on Amy to bring us her pump to save me the trip to get mine. I hate it when I mess up and leave my car somewhere and stuff in it I need. "LOSER"
It was a beautiful day for a long bike ride. At 8 am it was perfect, no jackets needed just arm warmers and cycle tights. The tires felt great. Comfy and fast. I don't know how they can be both but they are... We decided to go with the Conti 4000.
Heather was having a hard time getting warmed up. Her leg was bothering her a lil bit, but pushed thru it and had a nice strong ride all the way to the end. We did the whole ride with only 2 outhouse breaks. One about 10 miles in.. I had to go, Heather never got off her bike, she just circled waiting for me. The second break was at the top of Black Diamond Mines. We both had to go there, after about 40 miles of riding.
On the way home we went through Empire Mines Road. It looks like it was a real road at one time that has been closed. It's a lil climb up to it and then a nice descent with a few turns and then flattens out. It is so much fun to just hammer on the flat part and take it to your threshold all the way to the end. It's only a few miles long. I was trying to hit 30 mph on the flat today but didn't get there all I saw was 28 on the computer. But I forgot a funny part. We passed a couple going the opposite direction and they yelled for us to be careful there was some mud down the road.. I thought a lil mud so what and kept on going.. WOW it was thick and sticky and slippery.. I'm glad we had a lil warning and didn't go blasting thru it. Heather's pretty little bike and new red tires looked like a cyclocross bike. Mud was caked on her brakes, she couldn't even roll, we had to clean it to proceed. This picture doesn't even do it justice.

Since we are getting ready for a 100 mile ride, we are trying to figure out how much to eat and drink and what works best for us. We heard a good rule of thumb is 100 calories per 10 miles. 60 miles 600 calories. So we went with
Hammer Heed electrolyte drink 100 cal
Hammer perpetuem drink endurance fuel 270 cal
Gu roctane ultra endurance energy gel 100 cal
Power bar honey roasted nut 240 cal
If we would have eaten it all 710 cal
I didn't eat my gel and Heather didn't eat her bar.
I consumed 610 and my garmin said I burned 4612 seems to high but sounds good
Heather consumed 470 and her computer said she burned 1994 cal.
so we both had some cal. left to eat. I'm going to stick with this combo till we pass the 65 mile mark. When we hit our 80 mile ride I'm going to add some real food like maybe some dried pineapple or a box of raisins. Trying to think of food that is easy to carry and not get all smashed up... I would love to try a pb&j sammich but I can imagine what that would look like after about 30 miles.
Ok here are our numbers.
61.69 miles ave 14.4 mph 4hours 15 min in saddle
Heather average heart rate was 150 max 188 (Black Diamond Mines climb)
and average cadence was 75
My numbers were average heart rate 120 max 173 and average cadence 74
I want to finish our first century in under 7 hours .. if today was our ride we would have finished in 6.9 hours.. so we are close...(can you tell I love numbers) We still have 6 weeks of training so we possibly could pick up some more speed, and pray for no flats or crashes, or chain breaks... Go Team.